built a chrome extension to help read things

I used o4-mini to build a Chrome extension that gives me 1-minute summaries of any content + saves me from my "read later" graveyard of shame.

I always have a lot I want to read / consume. Articles, posts, blogs, videos. But most of it just sits in tabs until i close them. And I never read them…

so i made this chrome extension called try-tldr. it gives you a 1-min summary of anything - articles, pdfs, videos (hack: grab the transcript from description).

how it works:

• highlight any content you want

• get a 1-min summary with stuff you can actually use

• blue dot shows unread summaries

• can upvote/downvote

• highlights page for the good bits

using o3-mini for the reasoning part. works pretty well.

some features i want to add:

• ai chat so you can ask questions about the content

• counter to show how much time you saved

• might do something with the voting system

this isn't supposed to replace actually reading stuff. it's for all that content you're never actually going to read. some value > no value.

I’ve been thinking about the flip side too. try-tldr helps you consume in 1 min. what about creating in 1 min? tried a 60s drawing thing but didn't resonate with me. still thinking about this.

Here’s some demo vids to see in action:

Most recent:

Original:

Drop me a message if you want to use this for yourself!